Dr. Nina Federoff is the science and technology advisor to the U.S. Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton. On March 31, 2009, she told the BBC program One Planet “that humans had exceeded the Earth’s limits of sustainability.’ ”
“We have six-and-a-half-billion people on the planet, going rapidly towards seven. We’re going to need a lot of inventiveness about how we use water and grow crops,” she told the BBC.
Population Growth is Exponential
The World Factbook, which is published by the CIA says, “The planet’s population continues to explode: from 1 billion in 1820, to 2 billion in 1930, 3 billion in 1960, 4 billion in 1974, 5 billion in 1988, and 6 billion in 2000.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the current world population is 6.8 billion. This is growing by a net 218,030 people per day, giving a projected world population of nine billion by 2040.
The five countries with the biggest population are:
- China - 1.33 billion
- India - 1.16 billion
- United States – 306 million
- Indonesia – 230 million
- Brazil - 191 million
Population Reduction a Vital Issue
Dr. Federoff says it’s essential that the world come to grips with the overabundance of people and starts working to reduce the numbers.
Population experts and scientists such as Dr. Federoff, make the argument that people will start to suffocate on pollution and food supplies will be decimated by global warming unless the number of people on the planet is reduced.
Choking on Waste
Peak Oil expert Richard Heinberg has posed what appears to be a ridiculous question: “Are humans smarter than yeast?”
When yeast is put into grape juice it starts chowing down on the sugar content. In the process, yeast produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. And, while the grape juice is being turned into wine, the yeast is busy reproducing. But, that alcohol is poisonous to yeast, as it is to humans if taken in large enough quantities.
Eventually, the yeast produces so much alcohol that there is a total collapse of its population.
So, as Richard Heinburg asks, are humans going to catch on to the overpopulation problem before it’s too late?
The Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a private U.S. research group, predicts that Africa could have a billion more people by 2050, more than doubling the current figure to 1.9 billion. Such an increase will be hard on countries that already are struggling to provide basic necessities such as food and water.
According to the PRB, the population in industrialized countries will increase by only four percent by 2050, compared with 55 percent in developing countries. So, while Western European populations, for example, will shrink, Western Asian nations will gain about 186 million people by mid-century.
 |
